


Sunset In A Dark Sky

by VanillaCottonCandy1216



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Physical Abuse, With like ... each other tho, but ya girl believes in happily ever after so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaCottonCandy1216/pseuds/VanillaCottonCandy1216
Summary: "Well then, where am I?" I whisper softly, though I already know the answer.But the man's grin only widens with my question. "Why, where do you think you are? You're in the Capitol. President Snow's mansion, to be specific."/Catching Fire AU. When the arena blew apart, Katniss and Peeta were both captured by the Capitol and forced to be at Snow’s mercy. When they try to fight back, their circumstances grow dire, forcing them to give into Snow’s demands and behave as slaves of the Capitol.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!! So I came up with this story concept like a year ago almost? It's basically a twist on the ending of Catching Fire, where Peeta did find Katniss in the arena, at the last second. And so because he still had his tracker in, the Capitol got them both. 
> 
> I'm going to warn you all though, this is gonna be a dark-ish story. There's gonna be violence and other serious matters. But also, I'm not a dark person so I'm gonna do my best to make it not grotesteque or too elaborate for the more sinister matters.

My first thought as my eyes exhaustively crack open is I'm freezing. Absolutely freezing. I don't have the faintest idea where I am, but I know that it's cold. I know that it's wet. It's wet and it's rough and uncomfortable, and my head swarms with confusion as to where I am.

My left lid repels against my desire for sight, as I strain to take in my surroundings.

I'm inside a chilly, darkened cell. There's concrete whichever way my head turns. Thick metal bars, dripping with murky water, sit at my left.

And to my right sits a man, who's entirely too large for me to comprehend the image of, at first glance.

I've never seen a person so alarmingly vast in my life. His neck could match the width of both my thighs pressed together, his biceps are more than my entire frame, and though I can't see his height, as he kneeling down to my eye-level, I know just by the mere glance, it's undoubtedly enormous.

"Hello," he gleams and he flashes me a sick smile, his yellow teeth the brightest color I've seen yet.

All it takes is that one interaction for me to flee. I instinctively scramble away, attempting to put as much distance between me and him as I can get, when I feel a harsh tugging on my wrists, pulling me back against the concrete wall, holding me hostage.

My head snaps up at the same time the man's does, only his eyes don't show an ounce of surprise upon seeing the chains. I suppose they shouldn't.

Clearly, he's the one who locked me to the wall.

"Who are you?" I ask, suddenly able to find my voice, suddenly able to make the words form on my dry, cracked lips. "What do you want from me?"

The man snickers again and it hits me, rather abruptly, how unattractive this man is. It's not even his facial features. It's something so deep in his eyes that is entirely void and almost feral, that makes him so completely ugly to the eye.

"One question at a time, little girl," he whispers bitingly, and blows his breath conspicuously in my face.

"Can I be unchained?" I blurt out then, my brain finally beginning to catch up. My current predicament, the circumstances that led me here, suddenly come floating back to me.

I blew out the arena. I blew it out with my arrow and it paralyzed me. The electric shock paralyzed every muscle in my body, and I was frozen on the ground when Peeta found me.

There wasn't much time I remember in the arena after that. I remember Peeta's arms around me, holding me, and him yelling my name, screaming at the top of his lungs. Screaming apologies and promises and horrible wails of fear.

And I remember coming to on the hovercraft. Coming to with a large mask over my face, in a clinically piercing white room, and not another soul in sight.

I remember seeing the velvet hall carpets and the golden trimmed walls and I remember the exact moment I knew I was inside a Capitol hovercraft.

I searched for Peeta manically after that. I searched for him with a wide, long needle, with every intention of ending his life before the Capitol could touch him. Before anyone could tortured the life out of his soft, gentle blue eyes.

Before he could end up wherever he must be now.

But I never found him. I was discovered in the hallway, by three of Snow's men. I didn't stand much of a chance then, half-dazed, bloody arm, weak legs and empty stomach. I don't even think I put up a fight when the men knocked me back out.

With their fist, I realize now with absolute clarity, automatically reaching my hand to touch my swollen eye when the chains containing my wrists repel against the action.

"No," the man replies to my inquiry, and then smirks, like he's proud of himself for holding me prisoner. "You're stuck exactly where you are."

I feel myself swallow hard, showing involuntary weakness. "Well then, where am I?" I whisper softly, though I already know the answer.

But the man's grin only widens with my question. "Why, where do you think you are? You're in the Capitol. President Snow's mansion, to be specific."

He stands then and he's every bit as large as I feared he would be. I'm almost too afraid to utter another vowel, now seeing him from this vantage point, but something inside me, the part of me that's still stubborn and unafraid of anything, that's even unafraid of President Snow himself, blurts out, "Where's Peeta?"

The man opens the door to my prison cell, and I watch as the bars creak cacophonously, wondering in the back of my mind how the most expensive, most exquisite, most talked about place in this entire country has such a nasty place hidden inside.

I look around again, though it's hard to see in here, even with my unbruised eye. The dark concrete walls, the wet, freezing floor, the bars. It's an even fouler imprisonment than the stocks back home in Twelve.

Of course it is though. Because this isn't a jail to sober up or scare a little sense back into you. This isn't even a prison for the sinister criminals in the Capitol. This is a prison right inside President Snow's mansion itself.

And it's one that no one in the country knows exists.

It's purpose was to be the most frightening. To frighten it's captives before they meet their impending doom.

And it definitely succeeded, as even just glancing around the space, I feel a chill run up my back. A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature of the cell itself.

"Peeta?" The man repeats, his grin becoming a smirk. His words and facials don't match in the least. He seems excited I asked about Peeta.

Still, I answer as if he's just unaware who Peeta is. "Peeta Mellark? My district partner? My _fiancé_?" The word burns in my throat, as I suddenly see behind my lids the beach in the arena. The kisses, the locket, the declaration. The internal confusion I ignored, because I wasn't supposed to still be alive right now. The feeling of elation that vaguely felt connected to Peeta when I woke again.

I open my mouth to add another adjective to the list of descriptions for him, only to come up short, at a loss how else to define him. "My..."

But the enormous man seems to either finally grasp who I'm asking for or is giving up on playing mind tricks with me.

"Oh, _him_ ," he says dismissively as he slams my cell door shut and locks it. "He's dead."

/

I stare at the wall blankly for hours. Processing the words I heard, turning them around in my mind, trying to create a semblance of meaning out of them.

Peeta's dead? The idea doesn't even compute in my mind. He was on the hovercraft, he was somewhere, trapped in a room, just like me.

Or was he? What if he never made it to the Capitol after my stunt on the plane? What if Snow's men killed him right then and there? What if instead of taking his body to a cage, like mine, they deemed him unworthy of imprisonment and buried him, shoved him deep into a box somewhere, burned him to a crisp like they do criminals here in the Capitol.

The idea of the boy with the bread, the sweet boy who saved my life before he knew me, the boy who was kind and gentle and sincere and cunning, ceasing to be, takes my breath away. I feel my heart drop to my stomach, the image unimaginable.

Somewhere inside my head, I wonder what happened to the others. What happened to Finnick and Johanna and Beetee. Did they get captured too? Did Snow's people murder them as well?

Am I the last one still alive? Or is this a game being played? Am I still playing the game, here in the house in which Snow himself resides? Am I still in an arena?

Is Peeta really dead?

I know I should be grateful, and on some level I am. I wanted him dead. I wanted Peeta to be spared any of the suffering that's surely planned for me and whoever else Snow got.

But, deep inside, the part of me that isn't so strong, that isn't so selfless, craves the strong arms that fought off my nightmares, that gave me hope when all else felt doomed.

And, deep inside, there's a part of me that doesn't buy it. That doesn't believe in the idea that Snow's men would kill Peeta, after going to the trouble of capturing him.

But there's little ways of finding out, as I don't see a soul for hours upon hours. As I sit in chained silence, with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company.

Until the enormous man returns again, looking as sinister and guiltless as before. "Did you kill him?" I rasp out, as he enters my cell again. I don't know how much exact time has passed. The small slot of a window that resides above my cell, almost touching the ceiling, shows a crack of light that wasn't there earlier.

It's morning, I note, detached. The time of day has evidently lost all meaning to me. As has a lot of things.

What is the importance of time anyway when you have so little left?

If they've really killed Peeta, I surely can't be far behind. Surely there's little use for me if he's already gone.

At least, that's what I try to tell myself. That's what I try to convince myself of, in order to keep from climbing out of my skin at the thought of what else I could be waiting for. At what I am expected to endure.

At the thought of enduring it alone.

But, even as I try to stop myself from thinking it, the words and rumors I've heard of the years—everyone in the country has heard whisperings at some point in their lifetimes—of the things the Capitol does to traitors still inevitably plays in the back of my mind.

Beatings and whippings and electrocution and torture. And worse.

Fates worse than death.

I suddenly feel a wave of real, genuine gratitude, just at the realization that Peeta was spared of this reality. That, if he truly is dead, no one can hurt him any longer.

 _I still failed him though_ , I think sullenly. I wanted so badly to save his life, to take his place in certain death and in the end, I unequivocally failed him.

I failed him in every way someone could have and I'll never be able to tell him I'm sorry.

_I'm so sorry._

The giant speaks again and catches my attention. "Not a fan of preamble?" The man says, blatantly laughing to himself, blatantly making fun of me, right in front of my face.

But I bypass his entire demeanor, too foggy from the massive ache in my skull and the throb coursing throughout my entire body to be snarky. Too out of my element in this strange, foreign environment. "Did you kill Peeta?" I say again, demanding this time.

The man pulls at the chains and twists them in an odd way, intentionally ignoring my inquiry.

And still smirking with a horrible grin as he does so.

And I can't take this even for a second longer. This man's constant, smug smile, his lack of response, the games he's playing. The idea, the very notion, that Peeta Mellark ceases to be, drives me to the brink of insanity without warning.

Because he can't die. He couldn't have died. He was the one who was supposed to live.

Peeta was the good one. The kind one. The one who everyone liked and admired, who could speak to a crowd of thousands, who could paint pictures in people's heads, who could make anyone believe anything.

Even if it means he was saved from the undoubtable torment waiting for me, I can't make sense of Peeta dying. He can't be gone while I'm still here, waiting for him to find me.

Because I'm supposed to take his place.

The chains come loose suddenly and my hands are abruptly free. I suppose the large man is waiting for me to note this change to my situation but instead, I repeat myself once again.

"Did you kill Peeta Mellark?" I growl, fuming at this point for the answer.

Apparently I've earned his ire now, with my tenacity.

 _Good_ , I think to myself. I'm glad. I wanted that horrific, gut-churning smile off his face.

"Get up," He orders, like a military sergeant, and grabs my arm that Johanna Mason already took a chunk out of inside the arena.

I yell involuntarily at the contact, hissing as I get to my feet. My legs are like jelly beneath me, no doubt from lack of substance. I don't even know how many days have passed since I was in the arena, since me and Peeta and our allies ate the fish and bread on the beach.

The spinning in my head, probably from the beating I must have received on the hovercraft, isn't helping matters much either.

But the man doesn't have the time nor does he have the patience to wait for me to steady myself.

"You better move _now_ ," he snarls and propels me forward roughly.

I stumble involuntarily, like a baby deer finding its feet for the first time, and it dawns on me that he's dragging me out of the cell. Out of my imprisonment and into a dark, shadowy hall of empty cells alike.

The fact that I'm leaving isolation doesn't give me hope though. It only makes the feeling, the feeling of certain doom, in my core that much stronger.

The enormous man drags me down the hall, down a long winding pathway, and through a electrically locked steel door. I'd scarcely seen doors this thick and this complicated in the Capitol, as a tribute preparing for the games.

And I wonder how many people Snow has locked up and confided inside these cells. How many people died here while everyone in the outside world remained none the wiser.

We walk down hall after hall after that, in a confusing maze I could never retain the pattern of, my eyes bleary and my legs still weak, until finally, we reach what I can only suppose is our desired destination.

The word desired though couldn't be more opposite of how I feel. Despite the fact that I wish to be dead, that I wish I'd died in the arena, I can't help feeling absolutely petrified for whatever I'm about to face inside this room.

And I can't help craving Peeta beside me. Even if it is better for him to be gone, even if I should wish for it to the truth and not another game, I still wish he was beside me right now, more than anything else in the world.

My thoughts of Peeta glue me into place. When I don't make a move towards the door, I feel a harsh push forward. "Go," the man snaps, like I'm stupid, like I'm an animal that he's training. "Open the doorknob and go in the room."

But I know _who_ must be awaiting me when I enter and for that reason alone, I have the sickest desire for this horrific stranger to accompany me.

"Aren't you coming too?" I press, my voice uneven as I ask.

He only laughs at my words. "No. Snow wants to meet you alone. Now, go."

I suppose he's tired of waiting for me to make the move myself, because after only a moment more of my hesitation, the man uses his elbow to knock the door wide open and shoves me inside.

And, just as I thought, perhaps the only thing I have correctly seen coming, President Snow is waiting for me when I stumble into his office.

His smile isn't quite as obvious as the massive guard's but it's almost twice as deadly. Almost twice as sinister. It makes me feel even sicker inside than even the bleak, cold cell did.

"Have a seat, Miss Everdeen," he insists, setting his teacup down on the table between his seat and my proffered one.

I look back, as if hoping the guard or anyone else will be there, hoping that someone will be there to bear witness to this exchange.

As if having a witness will stop whatever must be waiting for me now.

I blew out the forcefield, ruined the games, _lived_. All unforgivable acts of rebellion in Snow's eyes.

"Marcus isn't there, Miss Everdeen," Snow says, reading the desperate searching in my eyes.

 _Marcus_? That's an unexpected name for someone so threatening, someone so intimidating. From the Capitol, no less, where people name their children after fabrics and animals.

"Sit down," the president says again and I see in his eyes, I don't really have a choice.

I find my seat gracelessly, trembling a little. I feel like I'm a fish from District Four, washed up onto the shore, touching dry land for the first time. Feeling a foreign sensation beneath my feel, unsure what I'm doing or why I'm here. Feeling like I can't breathe and I'm being suffocated in plain view.

"Why am I here?" I ask, and note that my voice still sounds distant and small.

The president smiles again and chuckles to himself. The skin on my back and legs becomes gooseflesh at the sound.

"You're here, my dear, because you blew out the arena. You caused a rebellion," he explains, so simple, so plainly, with no anger in his tone and I almost don't comprehend his meaning at all.

" _I_ caused a rebellion?" As I say the words, Bonnie and Twill's face appear in my mind. The news of District Thirteen's existence. The idea that I gave inspiration to rebels, all over Panem.

But Snow continues, explaining as if he believes I have zero indication of any of this. "After your arrow destroyed the arena, a list of rebels all ran to District Thirteen for refuge. On that list is your mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. Along with your allies from the arena."

I let that sink in for a long moment. Haymitch knew about an impending revolution? He knew that there was a District Thirteen, that there was active efforts for a rebellion and he never said anything?

The idea is too difficult for me to wrap my head around and I just stare at the president, with one blackened eye, my gaze as blank as the white on his walls.

"Well," Snow continues after a moment, as if correcting an error in his speech. " _Most_ of your allies in the arena."

That startles my mind out of it's shock. "Where's Peeta?" I murmur, unable to stop myself. Unable to accept the words that strange, huge man— _Marcus_ —had said.

Snow's face doesn't change though. "Where do you think he is, Miss Everdeen?"

And, I don't know if it's the glint in his eyes or the upturn to his lips, but my heart summersaults in my chest. As the possibility of Peeta's death fully hits me.

"Did you kill him?" I whisper, my brows knitting together painfully, trying to piece together what no one will tell me. "Is he dead? Did you have him killed?"

My legs suddenly find new life and I'm standing up, with a confidence I never knew I had when staring into the face of the country's most deadly man. I lean over the small table between us and my head swims and my bruised eye aches and I feel more alive in this moment than I've felt since I blew out the arena.

"Did you kill Peeta?" I demand, my voice growing more and more raspy.

"Miss Everdeen-"

I don't even let him finish. He's expression contorts into a look of pleasure, of arrogance, and I pounce. I fly across the table and towards the president of the country, ready for someone to kill me right here and right now. Willing it to happen. Wanting to finally be free, once and for all.

I just want to do some damage first. I want to do something, anything, to avenge Peeta, the one who deserved to live, before I too am taken out of this life.

It doesn't happen like I want. I do get a good swipe at Snow, taking satisfaction in seeing my jagged fingernails scratch across his face. But in a single breath, he beckons his security and I'm tackled in seconds by four different men.

Four different men that must weigh a combined thousand pounds. In less than a moment, they all knock me for me ground, knock the wind out of me, slam my nose into the marble floor violently, causing blood to spew.

But it's not the pain I pay attention to. It's not the absorbent amount of weight pressing down on my frail, starved body. It's not even the pleasure I should feel for the red liquid coming out of the president's cheek.

Instead, it's Snow's words I hear above everything else.

Words that I never in million years expected. That I'm completely unprepared to hear.

"I didn't kill Peeta, Miss Everdeen. _You_ did."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss wishes to give up on fighting until Snow gives her an offer regarding Peeta that stirs her back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Okay so I wanted to get the second chapter out ASAP because I feel chapter one alone doesn't give you too much clarity to what the story entails. (Though the tags should). But anyways, I'll warn you again, this is a dark concept but I'm not going to make it grotesque. And I really, really, really appreciate all of you who gave this fic a chance in chapter one. I really hope you guys continue to like it and hopefully become interested with the twists of the story. Thank you all so much who commented in the last day or so the first chapter has been up! Comments really motive us writers, ya know? Also thank you all who kudoed! Anyways, hope you like this chapter!

_"I didn't kill Peeta, Miss Everdeen. You did."_

The words race through my mind, as if on a conveyor belt that never once came to a stop. As if they were a song I couldn't get out of my head or a mantra the people of the Capitol shout to the victors.

The words burn in a way I was unaware speech could. Like I swallowed an open flame, my chest suddenly feels hot and tight.

 _Snow could be lying_ , I remind myself sharply. _This could all still be a part of his game_.

 _Except it doesn't feel like it is_ , a small voice inside my head casts doubt onto my denial.

His sincerity. His infliction and his sturdy nature. There was no hint of a lie in his tone. There was nothing to suggest this was just an act.

There was no ounce of hope, no room for question, in any aspect of his words.

Peeta was dead. I killed him somehow.

_"When you blew out the forcefield. The poor boy reached you just in time before the arena collapsed and it killed him."_

_"You killed him."_

It's so different from how I remember it. So different from what I believed. In my memory, Peeta didn't reach me until I'd already shot my arrow, he'd screamed my name, he'd cradled me to his chest. Covered my head, protected it from the gigantic pieces of sky falling around us.

He'd tried to save me, maybe leaving himself vulnerable, but no he sustained no injury. That's what I saw with my own eyes. That's what my heart and my head agreed happened.

But I was then grabbed up by a large claw, that attached to a Capitol Hovercraft. I was lifted in the air and knocked out immediately upon entry onto the plane. I woke up, frazzled and foggy, and failed to protect Peeta once again from these monsters, before being knocked out. I was beaten at some point and brought to a lightless cell.

There was no way I can know if Snow or his guards are telling me the truth. The only thing I know is my own mind is unreliable. My own mind is compromised and I don't know what to think anymore.

I know who I _can't_ trust though. I'm not so far gone that I am willing to believe Snow. I'm definitely not so far gone that I'm willing to take any of his men's word at face value.

I expect another beating, perhaps one I'm conscious for this time, after scratching the face of the most important man in Panem. Instead though, I'm taken directly by back to my same cell. Maybe a little too forcefully, but that's nothing to what I anticipated.

No, they don't do anything to harm me this time. They merely toss my struggling frame inside the cage and lock the door, effectively disappearing down the hall.

Effectively leaving me to stew in my own thoughts, my own buzzing, aching, broken down mind.

 _Peeta can't be dead_ , I tell myself. I saw him. He was there. His arms were holding me and he was shouting and he was there.

But what if he wasn't? What if it's all a hallucination made up inside my mind? What if he died, despite my every attempt to keep him alive, even at my own cost?

What if I really did kill him in the end?

It doesn't help that my brain really is deteriorating, before my very eyes. As I lay, with my cheek pressed to the freezing, damp concrete ground, I start to see snakes crawling in all directions, coming towards me, their mouths and their tongues out.

Instead of panicking and flailing around in desperate fear of the sinister creatures, I close my eyes and will them to come. Will them to bite me and inflict further pain onto my body. I pray they're venomous and they take me out right here, right now.

Without Peeta alive, there's little reason for me to put up a fight.

Prim's face flashes before my eyes and like a physical knife to my gut, I wince, realizing she has no idea where I am. She doesn't know what's happened to me.

And she probably never will. I was as good as dead the moment the Capitol grabbed me. Now, all I can hope is she knows I love her. That I meant every word I ever said and that I hope she lives long enough to see peace within this world. A peace we were never once afforded in our childhoods.

I hope, maybe a little too absentmindedly, that wherever Haymitch went, wherever the rebels ran to, Thirteen or otherwise, that they took my family with them. My dying wish, as I hope for it all to come to an end here now, is that those I love are safe.

But as the seconds tick by, I wait more and more for the snakes to stab their teeth into my flesh, inflict me with poison, put me through misery. I thought that it was inevitable when so many of them came slithering across the floor, from all corners.

I open my eyes expectantly, thinking the creatures will be inches from me, at the very most.

Instead they're gone. Instead the snakes, the all green and black and red and yellow horrific reptiles from only a moment prior have all evaporated into thin air.

I fly upwards, looking for the creatures desperately, looking for a simple sign that I didn't just hallucinate them. That I didn't just create a false image inside my mind, because that would mean I've finally snapped all the way.

But the snakes don't return, and I'm left with the idea that they were never here to start with. That they were just figments of my imagination.

The idea disturbs me less than it probably should. The idea of being absolutely crazy.

Instead it's a little comforting. Maybe if my mind is so irrefutably broken, Snow won't bother much with so me. Maybe if it's so irreparable, there will be no point in torturing me. Maybe they'll give up on me and give me a quick death, undoubtedly on national television, but quick just the same.

Maybe I'll hallucinate Peeta. Again, that is. Maybe I'll hallucinate him _again_ , if I am to believe that what I saw in the arena, what happened in my memories of the last few seconds of the Quell, is false. If I am to stop trusting my own mind and start trusting Snow's.

Insane or not, the very idea is laughable to me. The fact is, I'd rather still believe my own fantasy, my own psychosis, than take a single word out of that man's mouth at face value.

But, as it is, I am here and I am alone. And Peeta's nowhere to be found. As is anyone else. So maybe I truly did kill Peeta when I shot the arrow into the sky.

I think days begin to pass after that, but I'm not sure. My stomach spends more time growling and groaning than it spends in silence, but the notion of begging for food—begging to a wall or an empty hallway, to be specific, because no one else is even remotely around—doesn't even cross my mind.

Instead I am as content as I can be, lying on the floor, staring into space, trying to block out the images of what could be coming. As content as someone with what feels like a hole in her chest, with what feels like a knife is stuck in her lungs and gunpowder in her throat, can be.

I am definitively crazy now though. I realize it after an immeasurable amount of hours pass and the ceiling my tired, burning eye—the only one that currently opens—has been trained on suddenly begins to jiggle, suddenly moves up and down in a wave-like pattern, like it's made of goo or putty or water all of a sudden.

There's a voice too. A voice that doesn't belong to me.

It's a voice that could sing a thousand lullabies or maintain perfect harmony with mockingjays. So sweet and so soothing, murmuring soft lyrics to songs I once knew, but long ago forgot.

Songs my father used to sing, when I was a kid and life was simple. The world maybe wasn't much better but I was far more oblivious and far too naïve to recognize what was life for us was truly like.

" _Way away river away, run river run, to the sea. I've never seen it, I've only heard. They tell me it's wild and free. Way away wind blow away, blow away wind through the trees. Out to the forest, beyond the fences, they tell me it's wild and free."_

I don't even open my eyes, nor do I even entertain the idea of finding the source of the voice. Whoever it is, whoever is gifted with that voice, doesn't belong here. No one who can sing like that lives inside a dungeon. No one with that voice is going to be in this cell block.

No, that voice only lives inside my head. That voice is one only I can hear and only I can indulge in.

Somehow, by some inexplicable minuscule miracle, I feel a sense of gratitude seep into my body, spread out across every inch of my skin, hum beneath my ribcage.

If I'm going to die soon, it surely is made better by sweet music. Most people don't even get that. Especially not traitors or rebels.

Accepting death, accepting what's inevitably bound to happen, is easier than fighting to live. Fighting to keep going, knowing I'll be tormented and abused, knowing the awful atrocities the Capitol is capable of inflicting.

If I had any doubts the singing girl existed only inside my psyche, her words when she stops singing and speaks, only go further to prove the point.

"Don't give up, little Katniss. You're strong. You're _so_ strong," she whispers, her speaking voice as sweet as her singing.

I don't even crack open my lids a millimeter, but my mouth lazily utters, "You don't know that."

Her laugh sounds like wind chimes, in a perplexing way. "Yes, I do, sweet girl."

I hear her begin singing again, picking up where she left off, as the fog begins to overtake my brain once more, and I drift off to fitful sleep.

" _Out to the forest, beyond the fences, they tell me it's wild and free. Way away song find a way, carry my melody. Notes on a whistle, notes from a window, song be you wild and free. Way away love fly away, fly away love come to me. Follow the wind love, follow the river. Follow my song, come to me_."

/

A loud rattling of the bars only two feet from my head is what makes me come to. The cacophony is what rises me from my troubled slumber.

"Get up," the guard named Marcus spits at me, in an even worse mood than he was the last time we met.

"No," I whisper, barely audible but still defiant.

"What did you just say?"

"No," I repeat, my voice weak but unafraid. I'm not going to let him scare me into cowering. Peeta is dead. Prim and my mother aren't here or they would have mentioned it, dangled it in front of me by now. Gale has to be safe or Snow would surely have told me something about him during our short conversation too.

There's nothing to hold over me now. They can torture me all they want. In the end, the relief of freedom—the relief in knowing they'll kill me eventually—is sweet enough to bear it. There's nothing to force me to cooperate.

There's no one left that I love.

The same words Johanna Mason had uttered so simply, so truthfully, in the arena only days ago. Now, perhaps for the first time, I can understand how she must have felt to be so totally alone and so totally careless in towing lines and behaving cautiously.

Still, the large man is getting fed up with me.

As proven by his sudden presence beside me, inside the cell now too.

"I said, _get_ _up_ , little girl," he hisses in my ear. "Or I'll see to it that you lose both your legs first."

When I still refuse to respond though, when I don't dignify his threat in the least, his hands come into contact with my upper arms and I'm abruptly yanked into a upright stance.

"The president wishes to speak to you," he informs, his tone hostile, his breath inches from my face. "And you really don't want to upset the president."

"Course not," I manage to say before I'm shoved forward, knocked so far in one push I'm already in the hallway outside my cell.

The singing girl really must have been a figment of my imagination—or of my hallucinations—as when I peer around-subtly, for some instinctive reason-I can't find her anywhere.

And it's not like she can escape this prison block easily, without making contact with at least one of the guards. It's not like they have just random singing girls here.

Although, at this point, nothing would surprise me.

We walk the same exhaustive, twisty path as before, finding our way to Snow's office without much more preamble.

This time I don't even wish for Marcus' presence to accompany me inside the ominous room. Somehow, in my current mindset, I seem realize how little of a buffer he'd actually provide for me.

I open the door to the office, half expecting a firing squad to be waiting for me inside. There were so little repercussions for scratching Snow's face, it's a wonder they didn't just shoot me in the back the moment my nails sliced into his papery, crepe flesh.

Instead though, waiting for me, much like yesterday, was simply Snow himself. In the same chair, with the same sickening smile, the same rotten gleam in his eyes. The same exact positioning.

And I'm seated in the same exact chair.

If my head wasn't already whirling, I'd consider this a strange moment of unexpected deja vu.

Especially because Snow's face is mark free. There's no cut, no scratch or injury of any kind. His face is as smooth and unmarred as ever.

The Capitol has only the best healing remedies, I suppose.

I don't comment on his lack of mark. Even as far gone as I am, I know reminding him of my violent act will do me no good and only serve in further detriment. Only make him prolong whatever it is he has in store for me. Whatever is his reason for keeping me alive.

I sit silently in the chair, my only open eyelid drooping in boredom, waiting to be told this is the end for me. Waiting for the cold metal of a gun, the blast of agony, the force feeding of poisonous berries.

The latter of which would only be appropriate, considering those stupid berries are how this entire thing got started.

But instead of anything even remotely resembling those acts, I get an offer. From the president himself.

"I have a proposition for you, Miss Everdeen," he starts, his eyes growing bright and crazed and increasingly scary.

"What?" I whisper, my tone still too raspy to appear anything but weak. Which perhaps a slight edge of anger.

He doesn't seem to register that though. "Do you know of the rebel efforts?" He asks plainly.

I shake my head. Very serious and very truthful. Though it doesn't mean much to Snow. He wouldn't know the truth if it were staring him right in the face.

"Suppose I believe you," he continues, his voice still fluid and compelling. "Suppose you are telling me the truth. Then you don't know that your mother and sister are currently residing in Thirteen?"

With his words, I feel a massive sigh of relief flood in and out of my body. My hopes came true, my mother and Prim are safe. They're okay, there's no need for me to even worry now. Snow can't reach them in Thirteen.

Or can he? I assumed Thirteen was the place he couldn't get to, but what if I'm wrong? What if I'm still underestimating him?

"As is your... cousin?" He continues, a wry, arrogant smirk splaying across his overly puffed up lips as he reminds me of Gale's false alias as my blood relative. "Why, yes. I do believe your cousin, Gale, that you're so very close with is also in Thirteen. I believe he's the one who rescued as many citizens of your home district as possible, in fact."

But I know his game. I know what he's implying, even before he says more.

He still keeps going though, in spite of my unaffected gaze.

"I would go as far as to venture, Gale is one of the few that Thirteen will send out to brawl on their frontlines of battle."

Gale knows how to take care of himself, I tell myself though. Maybe it's a lie so I don't have to feel guilty for not wanting to keep fighting any longer, not with my family safe and out from Snow's grasp, not with Peeta gone.

Though part of me still questions that fact to be true.

Snow seemingly recognizes though that this implication isn't holding much water with me. He looks at me for a long moment, pondering, pensive, as if he's contemplating something.

"You said you didn't want a war, Miss Everdeen," he recalls.

"Yes," I affirm blankly. Because it's true. And what can be the harm in verifying a statement I already made months ago.

It seems that I'm about to find out.

"Well, it's time for you to prove it," he expresses sternly, his eyes boring deeply into mine again, locking me into place.

"H-how do I prove that?" I inquire, my brows drawing together, at a total and complete loss that has nothing to do with the beating or the exhaustion or hunger rumbling inside my stomach.

"If you don't want a war, then you need to help the Capitol. You need to film anti-war messages to go out among the districts," he explains intently.

My expression though doesn't change a bit. "But I thought they were in Thirteen-"

"The remaining citizens of Twelve are now taking refuge in Thirteen," he corrects sternly.

Something isn't adding up though and I feel my indifferent, defeated demeanor peel itself back, revealing a small part of me that I didn't even know existed, that still cares.

"Why just Twelve?" Is all I can manage to say.

Snow's not here to give me an update on my district though. "If you wish to ensure that a war will not take place and order will be restored to the country, then you need to film these messages and show that Katniss Everdeen does _not_ stand in solidarity with the rebels. You need to show that the rebels are falsely using your name for their own gain."

There's a long, pregnant pause before I force myself to work up the guts to say what I want with all the confidence I can muster. "I shot that arrow into the arena for a reason."

I get up to leave, hoping perhaps that this will show Snow and everyone else in this mansion how useless I am, how Peeta is— _was_ —a better candidate for the position they're asking me to fulfill, how they saved the wrong tribute, when the president's voice rings out again.

This time, his tone shifts. His voice is lower and cautionary now. "If you take another step towards that door, I can promise you will _live_ to regret it."

I don't miss the infliction on his words, and yet it still takes every ounce of energy in my body to turn back and face him.

He continues seamlessly. "District Thirteen is weak. They had a virus outbreak not long ago and it killed many of their young. They're an older community now, who need help in their own survival. They present themselves as a military district but they're far from it. The Capitol decimated them in our last war. What makes you think they'll survive this one?"

I shrug when I realize he's waiting for an answer. The truth is, if Gale and my family are safe, there's little left in this world for me to care about. Bonnie and Twill made Thirteen sound like a safe haven from all the horrors the Capitol inflicts. They made the lost district sound as if it were preparing for a war all these years.

There's no reason for me to try and bring Thirteen down, to stop the rebels or to try to help the Capitol. Even if Thirteen eventually falls, even if the Capitol wins the war again, if I helped I'd only be speeding up the wrong side's victory.

"Miss Everdeen," Snow starts again, pushing me out of my thoughts. "If you cooperate and help the Capitol in the war, I may be inclined to spare your family's lives."

For a moment my heart leaps in my chest. Because I still do want that. I want to ensure the safety of those I love. I want to know they're going to be alright, no matter what happens to me in the end.

But I don't believe him. Inside his eyes, all I see is emptiness. All that lies in those vacant irises is a bleak lack of heart and the ability to say whatever it takes to manipulate.

So when he continues to stare at me, waiting for an agreement or promise, all I do is shake my head no.

No, because I don't trust him in the least to keep up his promise.

No, because I learned the hard way that making deals and promises to save someone's life never works.

 _Just look at Peeta_ , I think to myself, and feel my heart sink, the revelation that he's truly gone, that the boy with the bread ceases to be, hitting me suddenly like an asteroid. Hitting me like a bullet to the chest, collapsing my diaphragm, making breathing impossible, ready to rip everything inside me to shreds.

And then, like clockwork, Snow speaks once more.

"I know these last few days must have been... _disorienting_ for you," he says, his voice calmer and more sympathetic now.

Disorienting? His men stole me from the arena, beat me, brought me here and locked me away in a cold, dark cell. I've heard things I never would have believed and told I murdered the one person I was so desperate to save.

Disorienting doesn't even begin to cover it.

Before I can even utter a syllable on the matter though, Snow continues and catches my attention this time. His words hit a spot inside of me that at the moment, I didn't even know was still alive.

"What if I told you Peeta was not dead?" He asks me suddenly, his cold blue eyes only intensifying.

My heart hammers in my chest at his words, beating over a hundred miles a minute as I open my mouth to speak. "What?" I can barely say, the single word catching in my throat.

"What if I told you Peeta Mellark didn’t die in the arena? What if I told you he was alive inside this mansion?"

I just stare at the sinister man, unsure how to make my brain absorb his words. " _What_?"

Snow leans forward now, his elbows resting on his knees as his eyes show, blatantly, he knows exactly what he's doing.

And he's enjoying himself.

"Peeta Mellark is still alive," he says calmly. "And you may see him. If you do what I ask and help the Capitol win this war."

/

_I never wanted a war._

_I never wanted any of this._

Those words rapidly play inside my head, over and over again, like a whiny child's complaint, like a unheard plea or an angry gripe. I didn't ask for any of this to happen to me. To me or to Peeta or Prim or any of us. But it did and now I'm stuck inside Snow's mansion, with no foreseeable future and no real hope of survival.

But, almost unwillingly, my drive to keep going floats back to life with the words, " _Peeta Mellark is alive._ "

Because that's all I care about now. All I've cared about since the Quell was announced really. Saving Peeta. No matter what else happens to me, no matter what they decide to put me through, the news of his survival means I can no longer give up so easily.

Because, at the end of the day, no matter what else comes, I can't leave Peeta behind.

Of course this all could be a trick and even Snow knows I'm right to be skeptical. He orders Marcus and another man I haven't encountered yet—he's not one of the guards who restrained me from harming the president—to take me to him. He murmurs another phrase—one I don't grasp the meaning of nor do I particularly care to—to Marcus, that _he knows what to do_. But first he needs to take me to the Tribute Block _._ First, before anything else, I need to see Peeta, Snow calmly informed.

His wording, the things he utters to Marcus but conspicuously says loud enough that I can still hear it, only serves to confuse me even more.

And his phrasing doesn't even make sense in my mind at first. Tribute Block? The two words don't coincide for me until we re-enter the corridor to the damp, depressing cells. Until we turn in a completely different direction now and make our way towards a brand new row of confinements.

 _Tribute Block_ rings in my ears again, like a horrible, deafening siren.

Block. Cell block, I realize, as we come closer and closer to two cages, right smack in the center of the aisle, facing each other. The only two cells with movement inside.

And it hits me suddenly that Peeta and I may not be the only people Snow brought here.

That thought pales though, it flits to the back of my mind in a moment's notice, as I see blonde curls struggle to peer up at me, from within the left-side cage.

And it almost feels like the electric shock from the arena again, the feeling of my arrow blowing out the sky, coursing through my body once more. Only instead of paralyzing me this time, it defibrillates me back to life.

"Peeta!" I scream, racing to the cell he's trapped inside until the bars are the only thing keeping me from him. " _Peeta_!"

His body is crumpled on the ground, his back is torn to shred and gushing blood, and he’s shaking and shivering and naked, and all I want is to get inside this cell and protect him from whoever did this.

"Let me in," I yell, demanding Marcus or the other guard open the barred wall separating me from him.

"I will if you get out of the way," Marcus spats, before knocking me backwards with the flick of a wrist.

He jams a key into the lock and throws the door open. "All yours."

I'm flying into the cell before he's even finished, my hands immediately on Peeta, touching his head, trying to find any injury there, carefully avoiding his ripped apart back, my fingers running down his arms, silently begging him to look up at me.

I get my wish. His pretty blue eyes peer upwards as I scoot as close to him as humanly possible, tears I didn't realize I was producing falling down rapidly.

"Please, Peeta, look at me," I cry, shaking almost as violently as him.

"Katniss?" He whispers but his soft voice is hoarse, without a doubt from the screams he must have emitted.

His next words break whatever is still left inside my heart. "Am I dead yet?"

"No," I sob, the one word too much for me to even bear. "No, please, no. Please, you can't die. _Please_."

I realize, without a single reservation in the world, that I'm pleading with Marcus now. That I'm asking him to save Peeta's life.

"That boy doesn't cooperate well," the other guard says with a sickening smile across his face. Marcus turns towards him and returns the glance.

"We merely were _whipping_ him into shape," he says with a vicious chortle, looking right at me as he makes the terrible joke.

But I'm too far gone, too desperate to care. I cradle as much of Peeta in my lap as I can hold without causing him more pain, my finger stroking his hair manically, and I beg with everything still alive left inside me. "Will you please save him?" I know the Capitol doctors can fix the damage done, they've repaired far worse for victor's after the games. "If you save him, I'll do _anything_. Anything you want."

My voice doesn't even sound like my own. It sounds like a desperate, mad woman. Screaming into the oblivion. Pleading with her hallucinations.

And, for some crazed reason it dawns on me, I sound like my mother used to, after my father died. In the sickening moments of the morning, where light was beginning to barely peak through the sky, I would sometimes find her, screeching to walls or ceilings, pleading frantically for my father to come back. Pleading frantically that someone would save him or spare him or rescue him.

I never told Prim what I saw. I never told anyone. The sight was too upsetting and too disturbing for my eleven-year-old self to process, on top of everything else I was beginning to shoulder.

But now, in spite of every which way I've wanted to differ from her, I'm imitating her exact behavior.

I'm screaming and pleading to a wall, begging them to save Peeta's life.

And the more difficult thing to comprehend is, I’m not even ashamed for my pleas. For the pathetic wails pouring out, expelling themselves from my lips in a broken rasp.

I spent my whole life fearing weakness, only to show it unabashed inside the enemy's home.

"Please," I sob again, my tears hitting Peeta in the face as they cascade down my cheeks, spilling off my chin.

I feel Peeta's hand come up to touch my lower back, in an absent motion that I know couldn't be more than an unconscious instinct to comfort me, like he's so accustomed to, after everything else we've been through. After everything else that’s been done to us.

Marcus exchanges a look with the other guard, vividly quite pleased with this outcome.

"If I save him, you will do the message to the districts-"

I don't even let him finish, too crazed and desperate. "If you save him, I'll do _anything_."

The words come out as quick as fire spreads through a forest. As quick as my tears fall down my cheeks.

And I mean the sentiment, with all the sincerity of my heart. I completely and entirely mean what I say.

I will do anything if he saves Peeta.

But I only wish I knew then, precisely what I was agreeing to.


End file.
